Month: July 2025

Time to Hatch

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In this kingdom 
the sun never sets; 
under the pale oval 
of the sky 
there seems no way in 
or out, 
and though there is a sea here 
there is no tide.
For the egg itself 
is a moon 
glowing faintly 
in the galaxy of the barn, 
safe but for the spoon’s 
ominous thunder, 
the first delicate crack 
of lightning.
~Linda Pastan, “Egg”

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:
it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present.
And you cannot go on indefinitely
being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad.
~C.S.Lewis from Mere Christianity

I try hard to be a good egg-
smooth on the surface,
gooey inside, too often scrambled,
yet ordinary and decent,
indistinguishable from others,
blending in,
not making waves.

It’s not been bad staying just as I am.
Except I can no longer remain like this.

The unhatched egg gets the boot, even by its parents.
When there are no signs of life,
no twitches and wiggles and movement inside,
it is doomed to rot.

And we all know nothing is worse than a rotten egg.

So life must move forward,
the fragments of shell left behind
abandoned as
useless confinement.

Newly hatched
means transformed to more than ordinary:
now there is the wind beneath my wings.
I’ll soar toward an endless horizon
where the sun never sets.
and stretches beyond eternity.

No longer scrambled and gooey.

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I Just Want to Ask…

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The ant in the shadow of this blade of grass
Is indifferent to my presence, to the action
Of the day, to the creaking of the limbs
Of the sycamore, to the sun lowering itself
Slowly from the scaffolding of the sky…

The ant has not moved.  It is deep in meditation.

…Ants understand
The principle of undefiled silence.  My ant glows
Like charcoal now in the lengthening rays of the sun.
I kneel and whisper, “Look up at me.  I’m here.”
~John Gilgun from “The Ant in the Shadow of This Blade of Grass”

Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant...

Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.

Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?

It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.

Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
how is your life, I wanted to ask.

I lifted it, took it outside.

This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing…

…I did this.
~Jane Hirshfield from “Today When I Could Do Nothing”

Each day I look for words
which might bring a smile,
a nod of recognition,
or moistened eye.

I seek common ground
with those I may never meet
in the chaos of existence.

So I ask:
how is your life?

Though I can do nothing else of import
in the scatter-mess of life’s ant hill,
I’m here,
listening for your comments, feedback and messages.

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When All Is Said…

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A butterfly dancing in the sunlight,
A bird singing to his mate,
The whispering pines,
The restless sea,
The gigantic mountains,
A stately tree,
The rain upon the roof,
The sun at early dawn,
A boy with rod and hook,
The babble of a shady brook,
A woman with her smiling babe,
A man whose eyes are kind and wise,
Youth that is eager and unafraid—
When all is said, I do love best
A little home where love abides,
And where there’s kindness, peace, and rest.
~Scottie McKenzie Frasier “The Things I Love”

When all is said and done,
I love best the people
who bring kindness, peace and rest
to the little house
we call home.

It is enough
and everything.

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Strung With Care

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In none of her other ages had she noted
her age or its burden and bounty of expectations.
The future was as flexible as the past,
and, in between, moments like unstrung pearls
strewn across velvet grieved and gladdened her
and always astonished her with their perfection.
There was no nothingness: there was only being.

Slowly she wakes from what had seemed a dream
to realize that this is her final age—
of indeterminate length and quality.
Things are ending, or have ended, or will end.
The pearls are strung with care, it is quite clear.
There is no nothingness—but she can almost,
some days, picture the world without her in it.
~Jane Greer “In none of her other ages”
(Jane died after a short illness last week at the age of 72)

I have always been well aware
we each arrive here with an expiration date
hidden from view.

We may live for decades assuming
the circled length of our own string of pearls
will continue indefinitely
with the latch closed and tight.

A few months ago,
my clasp opened unexpectedly,
my finite days of carefully strung pearls
threatening to spill, forever lost to me.

I realized things could end
without any hugged goodbyes.

Later, having been emergently restrung,
at least for the time being,
the look in my eyes
prompted the surgeon to say
“now you can live out your full life span.”

What I wanted to ask him
but couldn’t:
“and just how long might that be?”
knowing he had no true reassurance
for something only God can promise:

There is no nothingness.

By grace and a surgeon’s skill,
I gained nearly six months of pearls.
I’m still here, looking back
at the carefully strung
hours and days and weeks
behind and before me.

Right now I remain clasped tight,
hugging and held secure,
though one day I know
it will be time
to let go.

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo from The City of God, Bk. XXII, Chap. 30

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Don’t Let Them Go

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He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.
~Norman MacCaig “Small Boy” from The Poems of Norman MacCaig

photo by Nate Gibson at Sendai, Japan

Some things we pick up
but toss aside like a game.
They hold no meaning
and we want to see how far they go
and how many skips they make.

Some things we pick up
and they are smooth and sparkly,
seeming somehow special;
throwing them back into the abyss
feels like a loss, yet we still let them go.

When there is the one appearing so ordinary,
yet feels just right in our hand,
picked up and pondered,
then placed securely in a pocket,
never to be tossed away.

And so it is,
ordinary as we are,
He never lets us go.
We fit perfectly in His Hand,
safely stowed inside His pocket.

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I Borrowed This Dust

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Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver “Sometimes” from Red Bird

Getting older:

The first surprise: I like it.
Whatever happens now, some things
that used to terrify have not:

I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose
my only love. My three children
never had to run away from anyone.

Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness
which for me is silent.

Knowing as much sharpens
my delight in January freesia,
hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say

as we lie close on some gentle occasion:
every day won from such
darkness is a celebration.
~ Elaine Feinstein, “Getting Older” from The Clinic, Memory

Maybe
it’s time for me to practice
growing old… I only
borrowed this dust.
~Stanley Kunitz from “Passing Through” from Collected Poems

To do the useful thing,
to say the courageous thing,
to contemplate the beautiful thing:
that is enough for one man’s life.
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

I am astonished at living over seven decades,
despite my faltering dust.

Amazed by joys and sometimes by sorrows,
I hope to see much more before I’m done,
trying in my own way to tell about it.

I am grateful, so very grateful
to still be here,
living out the time left to me
learning:
how love can heal,
how tears are dried,
and most astonishing of all,
how God came here
to loan us His dust –
until the day He carries us,
all dusty,
back home.

photo by Tomomi Gibson

Lyrics from Carrie Newcomer:
I’ve been looking for beauty
In these broken times
By making some beauty
In the world that I find
Some say it′s too late
It′s too much to brave
But I believe there’s so much
Worth being saved

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Standing Still

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In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls…
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope.
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
~T.S. Eliot from “East Coker”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner “Lost”

Come listen in the silence of the moment before rain comes down.
There’s a deep sigh in the quiet of the forest and the tall tree’s crown.

Now hold me.
Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill?
Or miss me,
will you take the time to miss me when the earth stands still?

Cause there’s no use running
cause the storm’s still coming
and you’ve been running for too many years.

Come listen in the silence of the moment before shadows fall.
Feel the tremor of your heartbeat matching heartbeat as we both dissolve.

Now hold me….

Cause there’s no use running
cause the storm’s still coming
and you’ve been running for too many years.

So stay with me, held in my arms
Like branches of a tree
They’ll shelter you for many years.
~Don MacDonald “When The Earth Stands Still”

If I’m feeling lost in the figurative forest of my days on this earth, unsure where I’m heading and struggling to figure out where I’ve been, I just look up at our lone fir on the hill of our farm.

This fir has stood still through years of change around it, buffeted by windstorms and frozen rain and heavy snow, thirsted through dry summers, and rooted solid during the occasional earthquake.

I tend to follow whatever path appears before me, keeping my head down to make sure I don’t trip over a root or stumble on a rock. Yet around and above me are the clues to where I am and where I’m going.

So standing still beneath this tree, with a changing sky around me, God always reminds me where I am.
He knows when my focus is distracted and floundering.

I once was lost, and now am found.

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The Bees of the Invisible

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Let us go forward quietly,
forever making for the light,
and lifting up our hearts in the knowledge
that we are as others are
(and that others are as we are),
and that it is right to love one another
in the best possible way –
believing all things,
hoping for all things,
and enduring all things. 
~Vincent Van Gogh from a Letter to Theo Van Gogh – 3 April 1878

I have lived so long
On the cold hills alone . . .
I loved the rock
And the lean pine trees,
Hated the life in the turfy meadow,
Hated the heavy, sensuous bees.
I have lived so long
Under the high monotony of starry skies,
I am so cased about
With the clean wind and the cold nights,
People will not let me in
To their warm gardens
Full of bees.
~Janet Loxley Lewis “Austerity”


Everywhere transience is plunging into the depths of Being.
It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth
into ourselves, so deeply, so painfully and passionately,
that its essence can rise again, invisible, inside of us.
We are the bees of the invisible.
We wildly collect the honey of the visible,
to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.
~Rainier Maria Rilke in a letter to his friend Witold Hulewicz, 1925

I am convinced,
reading the news,
too many people are forced to survive
in a world cold and cruel,
without warmth or safety,
too many empty stomachs,
no healing hands for injury or disease.

Our country was trying to help
up until the last few months
when so much has been pulled away.

No longer are we, the helper bees, sent to the invisible,
bringing tangible hope and light, food and meds,
to those who have so little.

No longer do we bring collected honey
to the suffering, the ill, the poor and
invisible who share this planet.

Oh Lord, turn us away from such austerity.
Let us not forget how to share
the humming riches of Your warm garden.

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Be Winged and Fed

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O! for a horse with wings! 
~William Shakespeare from Cymbeline

photo by Bette Vander Haak
photo by Bette Vander Haak

Be winged. Be the father of all flying horses.
~C.S. Lewis from The Magician’s Nephew

photo by Bette Vander Haak
photo by Bette Vander Haak

One reason why birds and horses are happy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. 
~Dale Carnegie

photo by Bette Vander Haak

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk:
he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it;
~William Shakespeare from Henry V

We all need someone along for the ride with us, blessing us with their company — a precious friend who has our back and scratches it wonderfully – helping to keep the biting flies away by gobbling them up.

It is symbiosis at its best: a relationship built on mutual trust and helpfulness. In exchange for relief from annoying insects that a tail can’t flick off, a Haflinger horse serves up bugs on a smorgasbord landing platform located safely above farm cats and marauding coyotes.

Thanks to their perpetual full meal deals, these cowbirds do leave generous “deposits” behind that need to be brushed off at the end of the day. Like any good friendship, tidying up the little messes left behind is a small price to pay for the bliss of companionable comradeship.

We’re buds after all – best forever friends, trotting the air while the earth sings along.

And this is exactly what friends are for: one provides the feast while the other provides the wings, even if things get messy.

Be winged. Be fed. Cleaning up together.

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Has This Day Changed You?

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In June’s high light she stood at the sink
            With a glass of wine,
And listened for the bobolink,
And crushed garlic in late sunshine.

I watched her cooking, from my chair.
            She pressed her lips
Together, reached for kitchenware,
And tasted sauce from her fingertips.

“It’s ready now. Come on,” she said.
            “You light the candle.”
We ate, and talked, and went to bed,
And slept. It was a miracle.
~Donald Hall “Summer Kitchen”

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
~Jeanne Lohmann “Questions Before Dark” from The Light of Invisible Bodies

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer.
You are yourself the answer.
Before your face questions die away.
~C.S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces

When the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, what a gift is a wonderful evening meal, conversation at the dinner table and falling asleep with a gentle sigh of contentment.

These are sweet moments are worth remembering.

It is easy to get swept up in frustration with a plethora of angry public opinions and even angrier societal actions. Yet I find that only leads to indigestion, irritability and insomnia.

I ask myself thoughtful and sometimes troubling questions at the end of the day that too often feel unanswerable — only because I’m not paying attention to the ultimate Answer to all questions.

Each day I should be ready to be changed by His call to me to finish well.

I must not take any day for granted. Each is a sweet day to be remembered for some special moment that made me hope it could last forever.

And then to bed and sleep. It is a miracle.

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